China Investment Corp. said its investment portfolio ended a "rough" 2018 — as stock markets around the world declined — at $940.6 billion, down less than 1% from $941.4 billion the year before.
The Beijing-based sovereign wealth fund's annual report, released Friday, said total investment income for the year plunged 41% to $67.8 billion from $114.5 billion the year before, amid valuation losses of $21.2 billion.
For the year, the value of the portfolio's overseas investments dropped 2.4%, giving back a fraction of the prior year's 17.6% gain.
In the annual report, Chairman and CEO Peng Chun said CIC's investment team was able to outperform its annual performance target — which he didn't specify — by 371 basis points.
CIC doesn't break out the size of its overseas holdings — managed by two of its three investment subsidiaries: CIC International Co. Ltd., which invests in publicly traded overseas securities, and CIC Capital Corp., which focuses on private markets.
The third and biggest CIC unit, Central Huijin Investment Ltd., holds the government's stakes in 17 major Chinese financial institutions, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. and Agricultural Bank of China Ltd.
With stock markets at home and abroad retreating sharply during 2018, equities dropped to 38.3% of CIC's global investment portfolio from 43.6% the year before, while the share of alternatives shot up to 44.1% from 39.3%.
Fixed income slipped to 15.2% of the portfolio from 15.9%, while the allocation to cash and "others" doubled to 2.4%.
The portion of CIC's global portfolio managed internally, meanwhile, rose to 42.1% from 37.4% at the end of 2017.
It's unclear how much of the year-on-year shift in allocations and changes in CIC's mix of internally and externally managed assets was due to market-related changes as opposed to investment decisions by the sovereign wealth fund's investment team. A CIC spokesman couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
